Recommendations for Mississippi

Ensure that new teachers are observed and receive feedback early in the school year. It is critical that schools and districts closely monitor the performance of new teachers. Mississippi should ensure that its new teachers get the support they need, and that supervisors know early on which new teachers may be struggling or at risk for unacceptable levels of performance. As evaluation instruments become more data driven, it will not be feasible to issue a formal evaluation rating until applicable student data are available later in the year.

State response to our analysis

Mississippi provided a link that outlines the requirements for walk-through, informal and formal observations, as well as postconferences.

Exiting Ineffective Teachers

Pensions

How we graded

Research rationale

Annual evaluations
are standard practice in most professional jobs.
Although there has been much progress on this front
recently, about half of the states still do not mandate annual evaluations of
teachers who have reached permanent or tenured status. The lack of regular
evaluations is unique to the teaching profession and does little to advance the
notion that teachers are professionals.

Further, teacher evaluations are too often treated as mere
formalities rather than as important tools for rewarding good teachers, helping
average teachers improve and holding weak teachers accountable for poor
performance. State policy should reflect the importance of evaluations so that
teachers and principals alike take their consequences seriously.

Evaluations are
especially important for new teachers.
Individuals new to a profession frequently have reduced
responsibilities coupled with increased oversight. As competencies are
demonstrated, new responsibilities are added and supervision decreases. Such is
seldom the case for new teachers, who generally have the same classroom
responsibilities as veteran teachers, including responsibility for the academic
progress of their students, but may receive limited feedback on their
performance. In the absence of good metrics for determining who will be an
effective teacher before he or she begins to teach, it is critical that schools
and districts closely monitor the performance of new teachers.

The state should specifically require that districts observe
new teachers early in the school year. This policy would help ensure that new
teachers get the support they need early and that supervisors know from the
beginning of the school year which new teachers (and which students) may be at
risk. Subsequent observations provide important data about the teacher's
ability to improve. Data from evaluations from the teacher's early years of
teaching can then be used as part of the performance-based evidence to make a
decision about tenure.

Frequency of Evaluations: Supporting ResearchFor
the frequency of evaluations in government and private industry, see survey
results from Hudson Employment Index's report: "Pay and Performance in
America: 2005 Compensation and Benefits Report" Hudson Group (2005).

For
research emphasizing the importance of evaluation and observations for new
teachers in predicting future success and providing support for teachers see,
D. Staiger and J. Rockoff, "Searching for Effective Teachers with Imperfect Information." Journal of Economic Perspectives. Volume 24, No. 3, Summer 2010, pp. 97-118.